Wednesday 9 January 2008

ideas

I'm doin the first chapter of a story. I couldn't think of any ideas so I asked the person next to me for the first thing that came into their head. He wasn't listening so he said 'sorry'
This was the beginning of what I came up with based on that idea:

Wripped, torn and scattered over the floor were fragments of a single sheet of lined paper.
Just one sheet of the many random papers dumped on the threadbare, once-cobalt carpet.
Though each of those papers were somewhat different; flat, intact and neatly piled. Perhaps, what made that particular sheet so unlike the others was the navy inked scrawl of its contents.


Basically I reckoned the piece of paper would be an apology of some sort, but not sure where to go from there?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are a number of ways you could proceed from here... two obvious (to me) ones would be:
a) carry on describing the ink/words on the page... but without letting on what the words are (unless this is important to the plot), or
b) start talking about the person who has ripped up/dropped the paper... written the words...

Obviously there's more that you could do, but that's where I would go.

Incidentally, this reminds me of the opening of Richard Brautigan's novel Sombrero Fallout. This is a good thing...

Anonymous said...

Apart from the initial spelling mistake, powerful start. Alliteration of once-cobalt carpet works, good rhythmic feel, especially following on with flat and intact internal rhyme. Already, a lot of mystery has been set up, with implications of confessions, wills etc. It has an old fashioned feel but in a good way. It gives the reader confidence that a strong ghost story or thriller is coming. However, that is one howler of a mistake to start a story with. Amend at once.

Anonymous said...

I would want to read about the person. I would want to start knowing some of his/her thought processes...

Really good start though, it has already got me asking questions. Also the "once-cobalt carpet" already given me a strong impression of the room. How about developing the atmosphere of the setting?

Look forward to reading more :-)

Anonymous said...

I'm hooked! It's a really strong start and I want to read the rest. I see a couple of ways forward. I might make the start of the blog post the starting point, then it becomes a story about how I write interwoven with 'the story within a story'. Alternatively I might start to explore the wider environment in my description, lift the focus from the paper and let the character look around them.That might give me further ideas on where to go with it. But this is just what I'd do.
I like it very much so far :-)